


Pine Tree

by asexualtadashihamada (mad_half_hour)



Category: Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, mentions of possession, pinescone week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 04:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4815581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_half_hour/pseuds/asexualtadashihamada
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ill-conceived pet name opens up old wounds Dipper has spent years struggling to keep firmly behind him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pine Tree

Wirt hadn’t known any better.   
  
  
Dipper tells himself this over and over again, pushing the repetition through the hollow, ringing silence in his head to fill it with something other than the rising deluge of dread rushing in to drag him down, down, down into the cracks between the edges of the multiverse.   
  


Wirt hadn’t known any better because he couldn’t know any better, and there’s no one to blame for that except Dipper. Wirt hadn’t known, couldn’t have known, because Dipper didn’t want him to know. Still doesn’t, actually, which means he needs to get a grip, right now--  
 

“Hey, Dipper, are you alright?” Wirt asks, his voice gently cutting through the shrill scream of voidspace devouring his thoughts.  
 

Dipper’s eyes snap back into focus, and his vision is briefly consumed by the grain of their kitchen table. He must have been staring at it, unseeing, for who knows how long. Too long, if the tone of Wirt’s voice is anything to go by.  
 

It was the first piece of furniture the two of them had purchased together, vintage and miraculously underpriced from one of Mabel’s artsy friends. Its age shows in every nick and scratch of its weathered surface. When they picked it out, Wirt had said he liked it for its character. What drew Dipper in was less a matter of aesthetics, and more about the stories he could read from its scarred top and scuffed legs. Every mark carries a tale, and sometimes, when he has nothing better to do, he likes to imagine stories to fill in the blanks behind its varied blemishes.  
 

“Dipper?”

 

“Hmm?” Dipper pulls his gaze away from the table to meet Wirt’s eyes, and feels his awareness drop sharply back into place at the worry he finds there. “Um, sorry, man, what were you saying?”  
 

“Oh, uh, I was just wondering if you’re, um, feeling alright?” Wirt fiddles with the string of the tea bag in his empty mug, worrying the cotton until it frays beneath his fingers. “It’s just, you got really pale? And then you stopped talking and started staring into space, and I was kind of wondering if it had been something I said? Or, uh, did?”  
 

_Oh yeah, well if you’re going to keep calling me babe, then maybe I’ll start calling you my sappy little pine tree.  
_

_Pine Tree.  
_

_Pine Tree. Pine Tree. **Pine Tree. PINE TREE.  
**_ ****

**H͈̯̣̫̳̙͍́ͅé̹͙y̢͈̤̜ ͠҉͇͇͉̮̞̯́ͅt̸̵͙̲̺͖̰̳͞h̡̡͚̱̪̯̩̦͇̦ę̨̦̪̞̲rͅe̞͖̣͚͙̬̩̦,̼͠ ̧̼̩̼̳P̤̮̤̗͎i͖̫̲n̼̬̗̤̺͓è̴͙̺̗̬͡ ͈͍̕͠T͇̦̱̙̜ŗ̣͕͚̺̙̱̟̬e͏̵͖̝̤̠̻͔͍̝̀e͏̤̤̻̥̦̻̹̲!̝̳͔̭̜̮ ̪R̴҉̫̩̳̝̰̲͚̟̻e̶̷͈͙͓͖̹̳̥a̢̤͞d̥̦̦̤̰̩̞̝̠́y̶̟̠̜͈͎̝̮͢ ̥̘͟ţ̼̰̳͍̦̕o҉̙͖̱͓̗ ͏͓̜h͓̘͔͈̹̠͎́͘a͏̟̜̗̘̠̼̠v̦͖̕e̡͉̝̝̭̠̕ ̧͓̣͈̹̺͖̲̠s҉͔̣̕ó̴͍̜̩͇͟m̰̗͚̤̫͚̲̲͍e̟̺̤͈̙̥̦͚͠ͅ ̦̦͕͜͡f̤͇͔͝u͏̷̮̪͖̪n̵̫̫̞̞̤͚̖̭?̢̼̘̫͚͔̺  
̨̖̥̕**

 “No,” he croaks out, voice cracking like it hasn’t since the beginning of his freshman year of high school. Then, once he’s cleared his throat, “No. I’ve just been kind of out of it this morning.”  
 

“Are you sure?” Wirt’s look is skeptical at best, his shoulders tense. “You don’t have to spare my feelings, you know. I’m not going to be offended if you don’t want me to give you a nickname, like, if you think I’m being too possessive or—”  
 

“Wirt, seriously, it’s alright,” Dipper says as soothingly as he can around the bubble of guilt clogging his throat. His boyfriend looks more upset than he has since his last fight with his little brother, and this time it’s all his fault. “I’m alright. I promise. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Technically true. “I just stayed up too late last night, is all.” Always true. “I’m sure once I’ve had a nap or something I’ll be fine.” Hopefully true.  
 

Wirt’s shoulders have relaxed, but his hands are still working away at the string dangling from his cup, nimbly splitting it into a tail of thin slivers. “Are you sure?”  
 

Dipper takes Wirt’s hand away from its busywork and squeezes it gently, smiling at him until Wirt tentatively returns the gesture. “I’m positive. Now c’mon, we’ve got class in a half-hour and you still need to make me coffee.”  
 

Wirt scoffs, dropping Dipper’s hand in favor of flicking his nose. “Sometimes I think you only love me because between the two of us, I’m the only one who knows how to work the coffee machine.”  
 

“That’s not the only reason,” Dipper says teasingly, pushing back his chair so he can lean over and press his lips to Wirt’s, soft and quietly apologetic. “I also like your face.”  
 

Dipper feels Wirt’s laugh more than he hears it, a soft exhale that brushes over his cheek. “Right. My coffee and my looks, then.” Wirt sighs, but presses back into the kiss all the same. Normally when they’re pressed for time Wirt is the one urging them into action, but right now all he does is tilt his head and work open Dipper’s lips with a contented hum, hands falling to rest on Dipper’s shoulders. The sound is so relaxed and happy that Dipper can’t help but get lost in it, leaving everything else to fall behind, caught up in kisses and Wirt and a warmth that only he can invoke in Dipper, fizzy-uplifting and sunshine-bright.  
 

In the end, Dipper is late to his first class, and Wirt probably is too. But Dipper has a warm thermos filled with coffee in his hand, and the memory of Wirt’s last, lingering kiss on the brain, and for the moment, everything really is as fine as he’d said it would be.  
  


* * *

 

  
Dipper isn’t sure when it happens. All he knows is that between one blink and the next he becomes uncomfortably aware that the moon he’d been regarding with contempt between failed attempts at sleep has begun to stare right back at him, a single, thin black pupil marring its soft, golden surface like a jagged, inky slash. It peers through the small gap between his curtains, and Dipper’s breath hitches as it flickers over him before stopping at the thick, silvery stripe of skin marring his right shoulder.  
 

One by one, the stars begin to wink out, their light extinguished to feed the growing dark of the sky. The eye seems to smile, narrow and sharp, and suddenly a shadow is cast all along the path of its gaze, climbing up the bed and over Dipper’s shivering form. He can feel it as it covers him, oozing over him like the oily pitch sludge behind the sky and space and stars, slimy and frigid. All at once, the blood in his body turns to ice. When he tries to scream, all that comes out is a thin, pitiful little noise, the high-pitched whine of a wounded animal.  
 

“Wirt,” he chokes out, pushing back to escape the shadow of the moon’s cold glare and brace himself against his boyfriend’s side, pillows, the headboard, _anything,_ but no matter how much he scrambles he never touches anything solid, and never escapes the shadows spilling out across the room like wet ink. His arm darts out to his side, but the bed is cold and empty where it’s not covered in darkness. “Wirt? Wirt, please answer me!”  
 

 _Dipper?  
_  

The call is quiet, coming from somewhere else, another room. Dipper can barely hear it through the panic rushing through his head like a loud roar.  
 

“Wirt, is that you?” He can barely speak through his desperate gasps for air, but he needs to find Wirt. Needs to keep him safe.  
 

_Dipper, where are you?  
_

“I-I’m coming to get you,” Dipper gasps out, flinging the covers off of him and all but throwing himself out of the grasp of the shadows and through the doorway. “Wirt?”  
 

_Dipper?  
_

His voice is even quieter now, a whisper echoing along the hallway adjoining their bedroom and living space. Floorboards creak beneath his feet with every step he takes, but Dipper ignores the way they crack, like gunshots in the silence of the night, rushing to the sound of his name. It’s everywhere around him now, the sound of his name bouncing off the walls, rapping at his skull, thrilling through his blood to the beat of his pounding heart.

 

**DipperDipperDipper        DipperDipperDipper         DipperDipper     Dipper          DipperDipperDipper**

**Dipper           Dipper        DipperDipperDipper         DipperDipper     Dipper          DipperDipperDipper**

**Dipper           Dipper                   Dipper                   Dipper  Dipper   Dipper           Dipper**

**DipperDipperDipper                   Dipper                    Dipper   Dipper  Dipper          DipperDipper**

**Dipper                                        Dipper                    Dipper    Dipper Dipper          Dipper**

**Dipper                             DipperDipperDipper          Dipper     DipperDipper          DipperDipperDipper**

**Dipper                             DipperDipperDipper          Dipper     DipperDipper          DipperDipperDipper**

**DipperDipperDipper         DipperDipperDipper         DipperDipperDipper          DipperDipperDipper**

**DipperDipperDipper         Dipper           Dipper         DipperDipperDipper          DipperDipperDipper**

**Dipper                   Dipper           Dipper         Dipper                                Dipper**

**Dipper                   DipperDipperDipper         DipperDipper                      DipperDipper**

**Dipper                   Dipper      Dipper              Dipper                                Dipper**

**Dipper                   Dipper         Dipper           DipperDipperDipper           DipperDipperDipper**

**Dipper                   Dipper           Dipper         DipperDipperDipper           DipperDipperDipper**

“Wirt!”  
 

Dipper skids out of the hallway after what feels like hours, day, weeks, months later, folding himself in half and catching his breath in short, hard wheezes for air. His lungs feel tight, like his ribs have turned to vices and hold them locked between their pointed edges. Dipper looks around the living room wildly, but sees no sign of Wirt anywhere.  
 

_Dipper, please, help me!  
_

A cold blast of air sweeps through the room, and the front door bangs against the opposite wall hard enough to send a rain of paint and plaster pattering onto the floor of the entryway. From his place by the couch Dipper can see the unmistakable silhouette of his boyfriend cutting across the lawn of their apartment complex, casting a tall shadow behind him. It billows, like the capes he tends to favor over coats in the fall, rolling along the dead leaves and grass beneath him.  
 

Dipper doesn’t hesitate, bolting out the door to chase the sound of Wirt’s feet smacking against the ground. The moon shines down on the two of them, blinking (or is it winking?) away fat black teardrops from its torn, weeping pupil. They fall to the earth, as iridescent and deadly as an oil spill, and everywhere they touch withers away.  
 

_Dipper!  
_

_Dipper, please! I need you!  
_

“Wirt, I’m right behind you!” His footsteps reverberate through him like a bodyshock, running up his legs, tiny pops of bright pain lancing through the dark. “Just-just please, stop running! I can help you!”  
 

A peel of nervous laughter bubbles up his throat like bile, the rancid remains of a lie left half-swallowed. Who is he kidding? How can he blame Wirt for running when that’s all he’s been doing for years? He laughs again, laughs and laughs until his breaths drag in and out as heaving sobs, but he pushes past despite it, because he may not be able to help himself, but he’ll be damned before he fails to help Wirt.  
 

His tears distort the world around him into grotesque shapes and images, writhing shadows and screaming faces and the demonic beings just across the feather-thin barrier of the void. Dipper can’t bear to look at it, not again, not again, no, no, no, so he closes his eyes like a child who covers themselves with a blanket to ward away monsters and chases Wirt blind, reckless and terrified.  
  


Dipper crashes into a familiar pair of thin arms. The force of the collision sends the both of them tumbling across the hard, rough ground beneath them. As they turn, Dipper wraps his arms around Wirt’s middle, and does his best to shield him from harm.  
 

When they stop, the jolt sends air bursting from Dipper’s open mouth. He clutches Wirt as tightly as he can, pawing at him to check for injuries, a limb out of place or the wet touch of blood. He’s cold against his fingertips, far colder than any living person should ever be, and the thought has his eyes flying open, regardless of how much it sends his stomach spinning.

   
“Wirt?”  
 

Except it’s not Wirt looking back down at him. His eyes gleam yellow in the darkness, his pupils torn down through their irises like jagged, inky slashes, weeping fat black teardrops that roll down his cheeks, leaving raw tracks of shiny, pink skin behind.  
 

“N-no.”  
 

“Hey, Pine Tree, long time no see.”  
 

“No, y-you can’t be here, we _beat_ you-”  
 

“Aw, that’s cute.” Wirt-but-not-really swipes a thumb through the tears running down Dipper’s face, following their trail down to where they’ve begun to pool at the hollow of his neck, settling along his throat like a noose. “You should know there’s never really any beating the likes of me, kid.”  
 

“G-get out of him,” Dipper forces out, playing at confidence when all he can feel inside is the terror of a pair of twelve year olds facing down the stuff of Revelations. “B-bill, just. Just, leave Wirt out of this.”  
 

“Hah, no worries there, Pine Tree.” Bill smiles with Wirt’s face, a horrific zigzag of a grin, impossibly wide and filled with too many teeth, spanning dimensions and poking open black holes. “Your little boyfriend is nice and all, but I was in the market for something a little more…homey, y’know?”  
 

Wirt’s wonderful, lovely fingers run across the scar on his shoulder, digging in roughly with his nails. Dipper shakes his head back and forth, an instantaneous, rapid denial. “Please don’t.”  
 

“But Pine Tree,” he sing-songs, face drawn up into a mockery of the pout Dipper has seen thrown his way a hundred thousand times. It always makes him weak, but this is the first time the weakness stems from terror. “I want something with **c̜̥̻̫̭͖͍̖͉̣̩̭̱̙͖͖͘̕͡͝͡ͅͅh̗̙͉̟̣͈̬̣̰̥͚̳̰̠͈̣̥͜͞ạ̧̛͍̗̘̼͍̟͕̗̳̻̮͟ͅr̷͍͕͇̱̖̺̱̝͈͍̗͎a̕҉͎̠̯̱̼̣̱͉̫̀͜͠ç̶̞̹̬̹̭͚̜̘͖͖̗̟̮͢t̵̩̥͔̝̺̤͞e̸̻͓̝̙͎̣̤̺̣̼̩͖̹̥̬͕͖̜̕̕r̛̪͓͚̺̬̦̳͈̭͚͢͢ͅ”**

* * *

Stars explode behind Dipper’s eyes as he jolts up, pulling away from Bill’s eyes gleaming like a knife in the dark, struggling against a thousand grasping shadows tugging at him, holding him back, binding him down by the legs.  
 

“Nonononono,” he moans to himself, throwing himself against his restraints until he feels them give way under a particularly brutal lunge. There is a small window of freedom, where nothing is holding him back and the air whips around him, and everything in his mind settles. Then there are arms banding around his chest like steel girders, pinning his arms to his sides.  
 

“Dipper, Dipper, stop it!”  
 

“Nonono, I can’t, I won’t!” His blood is pounding in his head like monstrous waves pounding into a worn-out pier, threatening to send everything careening into a fathomless, infinite dive. “Let me go, let me go, let me go!”  
 

“Dipper, it was just a, a nightmare, a dream! Please, you need to calm down—”  
 

No matter how hard he tries, he can’t breathe.  
 

“I c-can’t, I c-can’t,” he chokes out. His lip trembles, and when he opens his mouth all that comes out is a broken, reedy squeak.  
 

“It’s okay,” Wirt says, pressing his face into Dipper’s unruly curls. “I’m here for you, Dipper. I’m here.” He sounds like himself, but then again, he’d sounded like himself up until a few minutes ago as well. He doesn’t know what to do.

   
_Trust no one  
_  

The thought rises up like something from the grave, and it nearly leaves Dipper sick. He let that go. He left it behind with the rest of Gravity Falls, and he can’t, he can’t go back to it again. Not when it all came so close to destroying him.  
 

“Wirt.” Once said, it’s like a verbal floodgate has been cracked wide open, and all Dipper can do is go with the flow, babbling his name through tears and shaky, hitching gasps for breath. “Wirt, Wirt, it’s you, you’re here, _Wirt, Wirt, Wirt_.”  
 

Gentle fingers card through his hair, not a hint of the blunt drag of nails across his scalp following in their wake. It’s nice, soothing, and absolutely nothing like Bill.  
 

“Dipper, is it okay if I turn you around?” Wirt’s voice is soft, as though he’s afraid speaking too loudly will set Dipper off all over again. Normally, Dipper hates being treated like something fragile, but right now he’s so grateful he feels ready to burst back into sobs. He settles for a nod, and then the arms around him are pulling him up and around, turning him until his cheek is pressed against soft cloth over a warm chest. Dipper can hear the steady _lubdup lubdup lubdup_ of Wirt’s heart beating beneath it, one of the greatest constants in Dipper’s life. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard something more beautiful.  
 

“Wirt.” Dipper swallows a hiccup, fighting to regain control of his breathing. His chest spasms uncomfortably, and he coughs, curling into a ball and pressing deeper into Wirt’s hold.  
 

“Try to match my breathing, okay, Dipper?” Wirt’s next breath is deep and slow, and it blows out his nose in a familiar whistle that nearly leaves him smiling. He tries to match him breath for breath, mentally reviewing the dangerous chemical reactions hyperventilating can cause in the blood and why it’s important to stop it as quickly as possible. The hand not in his hair smooths down his back, ignoring the way his tee-shirt clings to his skin with sweat. “You’re doing great, Dipper. Just keep breathing, nice and even.”  
 

Nice and even, slow and steady. Dipper lets himself slip into the rhythm, feeling himself unwind a little more with every successful breath. His muscles relax in gradual increments, from the tips of his fingers and toes up to his shoulders and hips, melting into the comforting warmth Wirt provides him. At some point, Wirt stops directing his breathing and begins to hum. It’s a tune Dipper’s only ever heard when around Wirt, in the tapping of a spoon against china cups or echoed quietly through the end of a cell phone. It’s so very Wirt that Dipper can do nothing but succumb to its soothing familiarity.  
 

Eventually, awareness begins to seep back into Dipper’s mind, and he finds himself cringing in shame. God, he can be so _pathetic_ sometimes. “I’m sorry,” Dipper apologizes, pulling away to look at Wirt’s face for the first time since waking up. “You didn’t deserve to wake up to an armful of hysterics and screaming.”  
 

“Dipper, it’s okay,” Wirt murmurs, pressing a kiss to the crown his head, then another to his birthmark, lingering fondly on his professed favorite new constellation. “Whatever you were dreaming about… It must have been awful, and I don’t want you to feel like you should be embarrassed over a reaction you had no control over. I-I want to be here for you as much as I can, in any way that I can. So, y’know, I would rather this have happened than you bottling it all up. N-not that I’m happy you woke up crying, I mean, that was terrible and I hate to see you upset, but, in the scheme of things, I mean, uh, oh gosh, sorry, sorry, I’m babbling.”  
 

Dipper lets out a wet laugh, burrowing his face into Wirt’s neck. “I like your babbling,” he says, kissing Wirt’s neck. “It’s cute.”

   
“So I’ve heard,” Wirt says wryly. Dipper imagines that his lip is twisted in that sarcastic tilt of his, and smiles into Wirt’s skin. It’s a nice image.  
 

A beat of silence stretches out between them, comfortable if not for the subtle stretch of tension left in the air from such a sudden, harsh awakening.  
 

“Dipper?”  
  


“Yeah?”  
 

Wirt lets out the kind of sigh that usually means he’s about to broach a topic he’s afraid is going to touch a nerve. “I guess I should start by saying that I don’t mind if you can’t answer, like if it makes you too uncomfortable or if you’re not ready or if it’s too soon, but… Who’s Bill?”  
 

Dipper’s shoulders draw up immediately at the name, but he fights to relax himself, focusing on Wirt’s arms around him, his grip tight enough to be a comforter, but loose enough to feel non-confining. He’s expected this, really. And if Dipper is being honest, Wirt has deserved to hear it for a long time now. They’re in it for the long haul, even if neither have ever outright stated as much. They own a home together, share a bed and working space, make sure to spend at least two meals a day eating together. It’s about time Dipper shares the parts of himself he’s most afraid of.  
 

Wirt must have read Dipper’s silence as refusal, scrambling to fill it with assurances. “Seriously, if you’re not up to talking about it, you don’t have to. We can just sit here until you’re ready to go back to bed, or we can put a movie on or something. Anything you want.”  
 

“No, it’s alright, Wirt,” Dipper says, leaning up to peck him on the lips. His sweet, considerate boyfriend. “It’s…painful to talk about, but you deserve to hear this. I don’t like to think back on it, or to dwell, but as much as I hate to admit it, it’s left a huge mark on me.”  
 

“We can take this as slowly as you want, Dipper.”  
 

“I know, which is why I know I can tell you about it.” Dipper swallows. “So, you know how every year my Grunkle Stan invites me to spend time over the summer at his place in Oregon?”  
 

“Mhmm. I think Mabel’s mentioned it a few times too. Some place called something…Falls, I think?”  
 

“Yeah, uh, Gravity Falls. And you’ve asked me before, why I always refuse to go. I’ve told you it’s because the Internet connection is awful and the weather sucks, and I mean, that’s completely true. But it’s also not the main reason.”  
 

If Wirt is upset that he’s lied about it, he doesn’t show it. Instead he holds him just the tiniest fraction closer, brushing a kiss across his brow. “So what is?”  
 

“Um, you may want to get settled. It’s kind of a long story. And it’s also sort of completely unbelievable. But I promise, I’m not like, crazy or delusional or anything. It’s all true.”

   
“Take as much time as you need. And don’t worry. I’ll always believe you.”  
 

Gratitude swells like a balloon in his heart, uplifting and defiant of the past still trying to tug it down. “Thank you. And, I love you. So, so much, you have no idea.”  
 

“I might have a clue. I mean, I love you, too, after all. So, so much.”  
 

Dipper lingers on that comfort, cups it in his hands and cradles it close, like something precious and rare, a star plucked from the sky to burn away the dark. If he needs it, he knows more than anything, more than the scars Bill left on his skin and mind or the exact temperature of the space between space and stars, more than the slick sensation of the void or how it feels to be torn from your own body, he knows that he can trust Wirt to always be there for him, no matter what. So with a deep breath, Dipper settles into the hold of his favorite person in the multiverse, and begins.

**Author's Note:**

> Usually if fics take place in a post-canon setting, Dipper is still really interested in Gravity Falls and the supernatural things that occur there, but after The Last Mabelcorn I kind of wanted to try my hand at a scenario where his summer at Gravity Falls left him traumatized and deeply scarred. I mean, he's 12 and Bill is trying to bring about the apocalypse. That's some terrifying stuff.


End file.
